Heart of Health Policy | Throughout the year, the College’s State Advocacy team works with ACC chapters to advance legislation that enhances patient care and defeat bills that threaten cardiovascular professionals and patients. While legislative efforts around issues such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation/automated external defibrillators, imaging and pulse oximetry continue to dominate in the states, a number of new issues are emerging across the country that are likely to have an impact on the cardiovascular field. Here are a few issues on the horizon:

• Intersection of clinical research, quality improvement and state health regulations: Increasingly, state health departments are relying on ACC’s guidelines, appropriate use criteria and quality initiatives to set rules for state policies. The College has been involved in several states to ensure the ACC programs are used to guide as opposed to creating policy. To date, the ACC has been successful at having ACC chapter leaders appointed to state health policy panels.
• Energy drinks: State officials are proposing bills and regulations to ban marketing and sales to youth. Often these proposals are part of a broader effort to reform school nutrition programs.
• Naturopaths: Naturopaths are alternative medicine “practitioners” who are advocating to perform many of the services, tests and diagnoses physicians are licensed to perform. They market themselves as “naturopathic physicians,” which many believe is misleading because they are not medical doctors or doctors of osteopathy. Currently, there are 17 states with boards that approve naturopathic licenses and set rules for their scope of practice.

Keywords: Health Policy, Quality Improvement, Defibrillators, Patient Care, Licensure, Oximetry, Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, Marketing, Cardiology Magazine, ACC Publications

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